


Memories

by azranemissary



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Aurora lives au, Other, Post Azran Legacy, aaa I am bad at tags, hurt comfort, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23197492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azranemissary/pseuds/azranemissary
Summary: He had to talk about them to start moving on, right?Desmond attempts to open up about his old family to his new one.
Relationships: Aurora & Desmond Sycamore
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Memories

"Mr Sycamore." Aurora speaks softly, knocking on his door. "I have coffee- Raymond taught me how to make it and he thought you'd like it."  
Nothing.  
It's a second before she cautiously turns the knob and opens the door, peering into the bedroom. It's dark, lit only by warm lamplight and the light leaking in from the hallway.  
"Desm-" She stops when the man on the bed looks up, almost in shock. His cheeks were stained with old tears, and in that moment he looked more alone than she had ever seen him.  
"I-I'm sorry - I can come back-"  
"It's okay." He cuts off her stuttering, running fingers through his hair and sending her a weak smile. "I'm glad you’re here, come in."  
He clears some of the papers strewn over the sheets, and leans to click on another light.  
Aurora hangs in the doorway for a moment, before stepping in and letting the door close softly behind her. She had only seen inside his room a couple of times before, as he was in general a very private person. It was mostly lined with bookshelves, but the lack of decoration surprised her - the photos and art that decorated the rest of the ship were absent. It seemed more like a spare room than one belonging to Sycamore. The man himself stood out amongst the dark decor.

"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I've just been.. reminiscing." He says, his voice sounding empty in the quiet room. She nods, placing the coffee on a side table and moving to sit next to him.  
The papers were in fact photos, some in black and white, most in colour mixed in with letters with sharp handwriting.  
Desmond took a breath, trying to still his hands shaking. Pain shared is pain halved, that's what Raymond said. Maybe after all these years of facing the aftermath in his own enraged way, he could open and let the flames flicker.  
He holds up a photo, passing it to Aurora who holds it with light fingertips.  
He looks weary when he talks, she notices, but not as constrained as he used too. Sadness and resentment faded into a numb melancholy.  
The photo is bright, three figures smiles stained into ink. She could instantly place one of them as Sycamore, his hair longer and smile wider, but still him all the same. The other two were.. different. A tall man, with kind eyes and soft features holding onto a young girl, younger than even Luke, dressed in yellow and reaching for the men that held her with outreached arms.  
The same two people were repeated again and again in the photos scattering on the duvet. In different outfits, places, situations. There were them holding hands, moving boxes, at a picnic, a closeup of the little girl holding up a smudged crayon drawing. In some she spotted Raymond, younger and less grey, but still looking out for his son, all those years ago.  
They sat heavy in her chest, hands shaking as not to damage such precious memories.  
"I suppose you can gather from context, but this was my husband, and our daughter." His voice was wobbly, but lacked the edge of revenge it would've a couple of years ago.  
She didn't know what to say, feeling her eyes mist. 

"They look... you look so happy." She whispered, and Desmond chuckles, a soft innocent thing.  
"We were, despite everything. We couldn't even be officially wed, but we were happy." He speaks with a tenderness that makes Auroras heart hurt, and she glances to him to see hes crying again too, unabashedly and unafraid.  
“Would you tell me about them? If you're up to it, of course.” She asks, and his lips curl into a fond smile as he nods. She moves closer to see the photos he begins resting his finger on as he talks.  
“I met Oscar during University, he was a literature major and a poet. He used to write poems for all our anniversaries and mail them to me-” He laughs. “As if we didn’t live in the same apartment.” He motions to the letters, all decorated in pretty handwriting and fountain pen drawings. “He felt like the first person to really.. Understand me. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t met him.”  
He trails off, and shakily wipes his tears.  
“I- I’m sorry- Its been so long I thought I coul-” He pushed down a sob, and Aurora moved to gently wrap her arms around him. She had never seen him like this. Everything before had been power, anger and rage and vengeance… but now he just seemed empty. A shadow of himself. A ghost of guilt and grief.  
He hugged her back, tightly, his body shaking.  
“Thank you.” He said, and she only smiled into his shoulder.  
“You’ve faced a lot of sorrow, but yet you’re still here. That has to be a testament to something, an ode to the fact that you deserve good.”  
He smiled, tears still dripping. She always seemed to know what he was thinking.  
“You haven’t lived a perfect life.” She says. “But that doesn’t dispel the good that you have felt, and it doesn’t mean you can’t be happy now.”  
And she believes that, she always had. Ever since she saw the true face of the sad man caught in his reasonings and facing his fear.  
“Aurora..” His voice is faint, and she only holds him tighter.  
It takes minutes of soft reassurance for the tears to stop, and eventually he pulls away, face flush and eyes a little less cloudy.

She helps him tidy up, photos and letters and history placed in a box under his bed to be treasured and talked about again, when he was ready.  
“How about we go to London?” She says a while later, reading and watching him nurse his coffee. They had been travelling since they bid goodbye to the others.  
He looks distant, before nodding.  
“I think that sounds like a good idea.”


End file.
